MOONLIGHT SERENADE: PAGE 6

Feel free to look at the pretty pictures while I waffle over here.

Some of what I have to say may even relate to the pictures. Some of it, like what I'm about to say relates to previous posts.

It's funny, so Ida Walker and her crotchety old friend are playing dominoes on page 4 and 5. And on page 5 you see the actual game. Now I have a confession to make, I don't really know how to play dominoes. And you know what? I'm not really planning on learning to play dominos before the age of 60. In fact, I'd rather play Mah Jong. I'd rather be one of those old asian dudes with facial hair that looks like it's half falling off with a squinty eye and a cigarette permanently attached to my lower lip. I'm going to start work on a "leer" so I can be a truly great Mah Jong player.

But uh, dominoes!

So I hit up my pal, Google for a dominoes game. And voila, instant dominoes game. That's how thorough I am. I like to make sure that the game actually makes sense. I guess I'm a stickler for detail. I'm not quite as bad as Sir Ridley Scott, whom in Bladerunner had the chess game which Roy Batty checkmates Tyrell based on a famous game played in 1851 by the German chess master Adolf Anderssen. I don't know if they had a Russian master beat a computer when they filmed Bladerunner back then, but it would have been cute to have used that game. Or vice versa. Or whatever.

So, uh... Dominoes. Woot! Yeah.


I also recall sitting in a Paris hotel trying to upload these at 3am. I had been finished by midnight, but I'd spent 3 hours trying to repair their internet and giving their poor night guy grief. The one night their isp goes down... Typical.

Also, have you ever tried typing on a French keyboard? It took me 20 minutes to write a paragraph because the keyboard has a different layout.

But coming back to the actual art. Oh yeah, the art. I also have to make a special mention of Annette's ghosts. They look beautiful, ethereal and most importantly subtle. It's so easy to go overboard with the special effects in comics (as they cost nothing), but I always feel that an understated show like HEROES does its best work with subtle visual effects.

As a house/blog cleaning thing, I've included a new label on the side: Funny and Favourite. I'm going to mark my favourite writing posts. And while I enjoy all my writing, it's only a few posts that are truly Touched by the Hand of Ciccolina (a Marvel no-prize for anyone who can guess that reference).

So as usual, I've been drawing my little butt off.

I've started work on the new HEROES gig. I'm just waiting for Peter (I assume Steigerwald) to get his character designs confirmed. I've done all my research. And here are my only clues. My research includes:

Polar gear
Aussie pubs
Tasers
Blue tooth headsets
African jungles
Communications rooms
Sylar's cell

Good luck putting that one together because Oliver Grigsby already has.

Last night I just finished Kelly Compeau's cover for the Black Tower and I will upload that soon. I'm so happy with it I almost burst. Kelly loved it too. We're just wrestling with typesetting, design and logos.


HANGING WITH NOO AND NAT

It sounds like some sort of prime-time tv show, and in some ways it was. Noo and Nat are both SARMY members (gratuitous link to this worthwhile Sylar inspired charity included). I've decided that as a hobby, I'm going to collect SARMY members, they're such damn nice people!
That's the legendary Noo on the left hocking her work's latest product. Go buy, go play. Forget your life and go become a Serbian criminal. That's Nat on the right, super-photographer and all-round coolness personified.

This time we made our way to the Movieum. The what?! It's really simple. Movie. Museum. Do the math. It's a whole bunch of stuff on exhibition that they pilfered from Pinewood studios (where they made Superman, Alien, Gladiator, a bunch of Bond films, Elizabeth, Batman and a whole bunch more).

Here are my highlights:

Do you see that on the left, that's the ORIGINAL costume from Superman 1. Let me tell you what this felt like for me. I was recently in Notre Dame and inside a vestibule at the back they have reliquaries holding fragments of the actual cross and the crown of thorns. Seeing this for me was like the most fanatical, devout Christian seeing those. God, I want it.

Christopher Reeve was a big guy too! He's on a raised platform and he towered over me. We guestimated he'd be around 6'4. All around the Movieum they had fun movie trivia cards. One of my favourites was that Christopher Reeve's body building routine for Superman was supervised by David Prowse - Darth Vader! How cool is that? To Kal-El's left was the Batman costume Keaton wore. Now Keaton's not so big a guy. Even on the same pedestal as Reeve's I was looking down on it. A little short for a stormtrooper, methinks.

Ok, now me and like, one other person are going to get this:
It's the throwing blade from Krull!!! Yeah! KRULL!!! You know, the movie with the five ended throwing blade and the uh - five ended throwing blade. I don't actually remember anything else about that film, but that's still awesome, right? Right?! The girls couldn't believe I was flipping out over this. C'mon people! KRULL! Ok, ok. It was a long time ago. Some of you probably weren't even born then. I'll let it go.

The other totally cool thing that happened was that there is an inhouse artist at the Movieum. His name is Huw J and he's a great guy. He is currently working on a revival of the old English space-hero, Garth. We got chatting and amazingly, Noo had a bunch of my stuff on her (I promise I will sign it next time I see you Noo!) so I could show him what I did. He invited me to go speak to his comic illustration class on Tuesday night. My mission? To psyche these poor bastards out. I'm really looking forward to that.

Anyway.

KRULL!!!